How do I create Python eggs from distutils source packages?

Question

I vaguely remember some sort of setuptools wrapper that would generate .egg files from distutils source. Can someone jog my memory?

Answer 1

setuptools monkey-patches some parts of distutils when it is imported. When you use easy_install to get a distutils-based project from PyPI, it will create an egg (pip may do that too). To do the same thing locally (i.e. in a directory that’s a code checkout or an unpacked tarball), use this trick: python -c "import setuptools; execfile('setup.py')" bdist_egg.